The integration of cyberinfrastructure resources from the campus perspective is critical to the support for the ever-increasing level of cross-disciplinary and cross-organizational aspects of scientific research. To assist in this goal, the Campus Bridging Task Force has been organizing a series of workshops focused on key areas that are critical to a successful campus cyberinfrastructure implementation. Previous workshops have been held in April and August, 2010 and have focused on Networking and Data-centric issues and Software and Services.
Senior campus leaders are a critical component in the development and successful implementation of campus cyberinfrastructure and the task force has planned a workshop that will be focused on this area. The meeting will provide a forum and opportunity for senior university administrators to offer their perspectives as to what issues must be solved to build a coherent campus cyberinfrastructure at their institution.
The workshop participants will also have an opportunity to provide feedback, input, and suggestions on the draft document and recommendations of the Campus Bridging Taskforce of the NSF Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure. This information will be valuable to developers, deployers, other campus administrators, and to the NSF itself in helping the organization plan future NSF programs that will merge with campus cyberinfrastructure and to provide the best cyberinfrastructure support to scientific and engineering researchers.
One of the central responsibilities for the National Science Foundation is the advancement of science and engineering research and education in the United States. Today technology plays a pivotal role in this science and engineering research and education and faculty, researchers and students in these areas depend on it to advance their forefront of knowledge. This process of incorporating and effectively utilizing this technology to advance these NSF goals has been given the term Cyberinfrastrcuture (CI) which can be defined as Cyberinfrastructure consists of computational systems, data and information management, advanced instruments, visualization environments, and people, all linked together by software and advanced networks to improve scholarly productivity and enable knowledge breakthroughs and discoveries not otherwise possible. Successfully building this effective Cyberinfrastructure on each campus is critical to the process of educating the next generation of scientists and engineers for our nation. Orchestrating this complex process both within a single institution of higher education and among other educational institutions requires the cooperation, planning, and coordination of faculty, administrators and funding agencies. The goal of campus bridging is to be able to seamlessly integrate use among a scientist or engineer’s personal cyberinfrastructure; Cyberinfrastructure on the scientist’s campus; cyberinfrastructure at other campuses; and cyberinfrastructure at the regional, national, and international levels; so that they all function as if they were proximate to the scientist. This workshop titled "Campus Leadership Engagement in Building a Coherent Campus Cyberinfrastructure" assembled a group of senior administrators and faculty from a cross section of institutions of higher education to focus on the challenges and opportunities to accomplish these goals. The workshop itself had as its main goals the gathering of the thoughts, ideas and perspectives of senior university administrators especially in the areas of: The current state of campus bridging from the perspectives of the CIO and VP for Research. Challenges and opportunities at the campus leader level for enablement of campus bridging in the university community. The senior campus leadership advocacy role for promoting campus bridging. The findings, comments and suggested next steps and recommendations that resulted from the work of the participants has helped to shape the thinking and perspectives of senior campus faculty leaders and administrators nationwide. Senior administrators and faculty at our institutions of higher education are critical players in this process. Without an educated and enlightened senior campus administration and senior campus faculty leaders actively supporting campus Cyberinfrastructure and opportunities that can be realized by effectively implementing such technology on their campus, it will be difficult for faculty, researchers, and students at these institutions of higher education to effectively compete world-wide in the years ahead. The workshop participants issued four main recommendations for advancing the Cyberinfrastructure goals for college and university campuses. These recommendations include Recommendation 1: Campuses should support both individual and collaborative research activities at their individual institution. Towards this end, campuses should cooperate with other campuses and institutions towards the goal of providing their educators and researchers a seamless cyberinfrastructure access and capability in support of collaborative research and education. Recommendation 2: Campuses should develop and deploy a cyberinfrastructure master plan with the goal of identifying and planning for the changing research infrastructure needs of faculty and researchers. Recommendation 3: The NSF should, to encourage academic institutions to implement a cyberinfrastructure master plan, fund a study and report on successful campus cyberinfrastructure implementations in order to document and disseminate the best practices for strategies, governance, financial models, and cyberinfrastructure deployment. Recommendation 4: US colleges and universities should strive to include costs for research cyberinfrastructure in negotiated facilities and administration rates. The resulting facilities and administration income from grant awards should be used strategically within the context of a campus cyberinfrastructure master plan. The workshop organizers assembled the full set of materials from the workshop, including the presentations and other documentation. The report, titled Campus Bridging: Campus Leadership Engagement in Building a Coherent Campus Cyberinfrastructure Workshop Report is available at http://pti.iu.edu/campusbridging/leadership The report is available to the public and can be downloaded for free from the web. An option to order a printed copy of the report is also available. Each of these recommendations focused on enhancing the infrastructure for research and education, by developing CI that will facilitate computational systems, networks, and faculty/researcher partnerships both within an educational institution and among educational institutions. Implementing a successful CI will also result in better education and dissemination scientific and technological understanding for the next generation of scientists and engineers. A better educated and technologically savvy population of scientists and engineers will be better educated and equipped to successfully tackle and develop solutions to the most pressing technological problems and challenges facing society today and it the future.
